In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of peach tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Rose Princess’.
During the spring of 1996 I gathered fruit from an unpatented peach tree in my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley) that had been designated as “5P57”. This particular peach tree was itself a first generation cross using ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) yellow flesh nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed yellow flesh peach (unpatented) as the selected pollen parent. The seeds from this fruit were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse as a group labeled “5P57 (OP)”. Upon reaching dormancy that fall they were transplanted to a cultivated area in the experimental orchard described above. During the fruit evaluation season of 1999 I selected the claimed variety as a single tree from this group of “5P57 (OP)” described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of peach tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed grandparent, ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) nectarine by being productive, requiring medium chilling requirements, and by producing fruit that is nearly globose in shape, acidic and sweet in flavor, yellow in flesh color, and almost full red in skin color, but is quite distinct by producing peaches, instead of nectarines, that are non-melting in flesh texture and that ripen about thirty days earlier.
The present variety is most similar to ‘Crown Princess’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,070) peach by producing peaches that are very firm and non-melting in texture, yellow in flesh color, and mostly red in skin color, but is distinguished therefrom by having reniform instead of globose glands, by being more productive, by requiring less chilling hours, and by producing fruit that tastes better and that matures about twelve days earlier.